While the United Planets had managed interplanetary spacetravel fairly well, interstellar travel turned out to be quite a problem as Einstein had pointed out in the early 19th century. Limited to the almost speed of light, they had to find some other way to reach the vast depths of space. In the late 21st century with mother earth beeing bleed out of resources by and overpopulation beeing the largest problem of an almost starving humanity mankind focused their efforts and last resources to solve the problem. In the mid of the 22nd Century they finally developed the first FTL- drive. The trick was, to develop a ship that actually didnt move. Thats how the singularity drive was invented. It worked by focusing artificial gravitational energy that space and time where bent to an extent as to displace any matter near the rupture. Unfortunately the methods of controlling the process where so crude that navigation was a mere guess in direction and distance if there where no tuned stations. The first colonists traveled with high risk since they never knew what awaited them at the end of the trip. In huge selfcontaining Stations, with all they might need and a fleet of ships they jumped into the unkown. With good luck they found a place they could settle and finally manage to build a Jumpgate to tune in on earth and straighten the way for other pioneers. With bad luck they had to cross vast distances of space for generations to find a sun, the only energy source large enough to collect the immense amount of power needed for another jump. The pic shows one of the first stations beeing rigged up for the trip. Powerfull Navy Tugboats haul the huge Stardestroyers in their docking positions. enjoy Dj